Does exercise boost immunity? Here’s what you need to know

Immunity is undoubtedly a precious diamond, an immeasurable treasure to own. The stronger your immunity harder it is to break you down, just like a diamond. And just like it takes a lot of pressure for a diamond to emerge, similarly it takes constant work to build one’s immunity too. There are many facets to immunity, but the two most important criteria for it are healthy food and exercising. Now one may wonder why it is so important to exercise for immunity. After all, we are all born with some or other immunity. Well it’s a simple rule, we all have some immunity but most of it is grown into, as a new-born, we are on borrowed immunity and as we grow we start to build on it. And if you plan to live comfortably you need to build your house. Just owning some land gives you the base work, but you will have to work to build the rest, the walls, the roof to protect yourself.

The same goes for immunity. Now let me explain why it is crucial for you to include physical activity in your life if you wish to continue staying healthy. We all are well aware that exercising helps a person build muscles, lose excess or maintain weight which helps one fight against conditions like obesity and various other accompanied risk factors. Additionally, we don’t just build muscles, but exercising regularly also strengthens our bones and safeguards against osteoporosis and others such evils.

Aging as everyone knows brings with it a decline in immunity also called immunosenescence, but research shows that regular physical activity can help delay this process, and boost your immune functions, meaning better adaptability to vaccines, lesser infections as compared to the inactive ones. Hypertension or high blood pressure is a common problem putting constant pressure on one’s immune system and dragging it down, but regular moderate physical activity will strengthen your heart, reduce the pressure on your arteries and help heart pump blood easily. It will not just help you lower your blood pressure but boost the overworked immune system too.

Stress is an additional factor that mars the immune system. It’s a double-edged sword that affects your physical and mental health. But regular physical activity can help you regulate your cortisol levels (the stress hormone) and additionally it releases endorphins the happy hormones, hence aiding better health.

Immunity isn’t one thing it’s got many components to it. So when we exercise we also aid our metabolism and remove toxins from our body, which in totality contributes to an effective immune system.

These are few proven benefits of exercising, and the best part here is what we are referring to as exercising or physical activity is just moderate exercises, like walking, cycling, swimming, and aerobics clocking about 150 min a week.

For ages now everybody has been stressing that one should exercise daily to stay healthy because the bottom line is, nothing worth comes for free.